Chapter 8: 11. Destiny Part 3

She can feel a part of herself speaking to her. A part of her mind that she has never been aware of, one that she has never had control over or understanding towards. But, it is a part of her, of that she is certain, she can only be certain. This part of her mind, her very soul, is telling her that the two of them are leaving this place. Not this classroom. They aren’t going to be able to see home again. This is why Ajax has started to cry. It is all he can do at what he understands to be an incomparably bizarre state of affairs. His destiny that he has never been able to understand has been revealed to him. A small, yet certain, unchangeable piece of it. If he could, he’d give it up, that power that he understands is a part of him; the ability to leave this world that is his alone.

“Ms. Rowfield…” He calls out to Christa in dejection. She, who has been silent for a long time while trying to understand what she has seen until this moment, responds.

“Y-Yes, Ajax?”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Rowfield, but… could you… could you tell my family something?”

“What is it, Ajax? What’s going on? I-I don’t understand, y-you seem fine? Why are you suddenly–”

“Ms. Rowfield.” Shaula, understanding a little about what Ajax wants to say, knowing full well that their departure is near, stops Christa from interrupting him. Tears are streaming down her cheeks.

“...” Christa understands what they are thinking and remains silent.

“Just… tell my family. Tell them that I… I didn’t want to go.”

“Wait, no. What are–”

Ajax feels his body undergoing its traversal through space. He looks over at Shaula as he starts to cry once again. Streams of tears pour from his face as Christa watches his body freeze as if time has stopped, while changing color. Currently, his body is undergoing a process of red-shifting, a sign of its journey through the singularity space. Ajax’s hands turn to dust that expands outwards into a cloud. His arms and legs follow suit. Shaula is also frozen in time, staring at Ajax as she herself disintegrates. As if she were Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt while disobeying God by looking back, her body slowly turns to nothing. As their heads disappear, for a brief moment, there are two spots of light floating in midair where their heads had just been. For a few seconds the light lingers before vanishing.

Christa Rowfield is the only one left in the classroom on that day. She went downstairs in order to call Ajax’s parents as well as emergency services. Of course, there is nothing to bury. Ajax’s mother arrives and the scene is already being hidden from her by the police and crime scene investigators. Christa decides not to tell her about any of the details of Ajax and Shaula’s pain because of how horrifying it was for her to remember it. Nobody can claim a reliable version of what happened, a version that can be believed. However, the students who saw Ajax and Shaula right up to the moment of the disintegration of their flesh explained to the investigators what they had seen. They corroborate most of Christa’s story. A good explanation is not accepted by the police; eventually, they report the incident to the federal authorities who then take it up the chain of command to the military. Investigations are done but eventually, it is deemed a cold case, something that the military has to watch out for again if one of Western Britannia’s enemies uses a weapon that does something like what happened to those two poor students.

Christa takes a long time off of work in order to process the incident. Multiple months are spent taking a sabbatical; she has some money saved up and there could not be a better reason to make use of it. The school doesn’t expect her back but she still loves teaching so she doesn’t quit. She still loves it. One day, she feels guilt about hiding the last moments of her two students’ lives from their family. She couldn’t recount to Ajax’s parents what his last moments were like without giving them an idea of the pain they went through. It was a pain she didn’t want to remember. She calls Ajax’s mom on the phone eventually, while drunk and in pain, and gives her the details of his last moments. She doesn’t learn until much later that this incident resulted in Ajax’s mother attempting suicide.

Once she learns about what she has done to Ajax’s family, she quits working for Anne Bond. She moves back in with her parents and hides from the world. She struggles every week in a session with her therapist as she recalls that unbelievable event that she had witnessed. Her first few therapists didn’t believe her and suggested some antipsychotics but her latest one has been kinder. She started to work through her nightmares, her fears, her hatred for not doing something more to try and save them. Eventually, she talks about making that drunk mistake and accidentally driving a mother to attempt suicide. She considers making amends with Ajax’s family but she has no idea how to do that without just being self-serving. Her therapy sessions help her. She returns to teaching five years after Ajax’s and Shaula’s death and returns to Anne bond four years after that.

One day, she meets Ajax’s younger sister, Rita, a student in her 12th grade. At first, she didn’t recognize the resemblance, but Leonid isn’t a very common surname so she puts things together very quickly. Christa is in the audience when Rita delivers her Valedictorian address about her brother that meant the world to her. She feels empty. She shouldn’t feel responsible for his death, she shouldn’t feel responsible for that but hasn’t she harmed him by hurting his mother? Her shame may fade but it will never disappear. She wonders where they are now. What kind of lives are they living? She had always taken their words literally. They are alive together somewhere. Somewhere they didn’t want to go and somewhere they can never return from. She just hopes that wherever they are, they’re happy.

You are reading story The Children of the Divine Limit at novel35.com

You can find story with these keywords: The Children of the Divine Limit, Read The Children of the Divine Limit, The Children of the Divine Limit novel, The Children of the Divine Limit book, The Children of the Divine Limit story, The Children of the Divine Limit full, The Children of the Divine Limit Latest Chapter